This blog features my weekly column called "What's up in the sky". It is published every Saturday in the Ellensburg newspaper, Daily Record (http://www.kvnews.com/). While my postings will be most accurate for Central Washington, readers throughout the northern USA may find something of use.

Friday, March 10, 2017

The Ellensburg WA sky for the week of 3/11/17

Saturday: Don't
forget to set you clocks ahead one hour tonight for the annual ritual called
daylight savings. Daylight savings originated in the United States during World
War I to save energy for the war effort. But a recent study by two economists
shows that switching to daylight savings time may actually lead to higher
utility bills. When the economists compared the previous few years of energy
bills in the section of Indiana that just started observing daylight savings,
they discovered that switching to daylight savings cost Indiana utility
customers $8.6 million in electricity. In an even more important consequence of
daylight savings, Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia
discovered a 7% jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after we "spring
ahead". Blame it on the lost hour of sleep. And, sky watchers will lose
even more sleep because the sky stays light for an additional hour.

Sunday: This
morning’s full moon is in the constellation Leo the lion. While we may refer to
the moon tonight by the boring title, “a full moon in March”, Native Americans
in the eastern United States called this moon the Full Worm Moon. By March, the
temperature has increased enough so the ground starts to thaw and earthworms
make their first appearance. Earthworms attract birds. Northern tribes thought
of the bird connection when they referred to the March full moon as the Full
Crow Moon. Tribes in parts of the country with maple trees call this full moon
the Full Sap Moon. For more full moon names, go to http://www.almanac.com/content/full-moon-names.

Monday: “The
crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number one. “I’m sorry. I don’t
recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one exclaimed, “That’s because
it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the constellation Corvus the
crow.” This very bad spy movie dialogue is to remind you that Corvus had a very
bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the god Apollo the news that
his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic case of punishing the
messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored crow black. The
box-shaped Corvus is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the
southeast horizon at 10 p.m.

Tuesday: If
you ask an astrobiologist for the three most likely places to find evidence of
life in the Solar System, other than Earth, they’d probably say Mars, Europa
(“Didn’t they sing “The Final Countdown”?”), and Enceladus. Mars makes sense
because you know scientists have sent a lot of probes there. Astronomers first
discovered strong evidence of a large water ocean on Europa, a moon of Jupiter,
in 1989. However, Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, first piqued
astrobiologists’ interest a few years ago then NASA’s Cassini probe discovered
jets of water containing organic materials shooting out. Five years ago, the
German space agency started a project called Enceladus Explorer, EnEx for
short, to collect sample from deep within Enceladus. For more information on
the Enceladus mission, go to http://goo.gl/VPxzs.
At 8 p.m., Mars is two and a half fists above the west horizon. By 11 p.m., Jupiter
and Europa are about one and a half fists above the east-southeast horizon. By
6 a.m., Saturn and Enceladus are two fists above the south-southeast horizon. By
the way, the Swedish group Europe sang “The Final Countdown”. And they
were “heading for Venus” in the song, not to the worlds of the outer Solar
System. Venus is one fist above the west horizon at 8 p.m.

Wednesday: Many artists have sung the song “Blue Moon”. But few have sung
the song “New Moons”. It goes, in part “New Moons, you saw me standing with 27
others. Rolling around like a barrel. Without close sisters or bothers.” It’s
about the planet Uranus, which orbits the Sun in a rolling motion. Astronomers recently
reviewed old Voyager 2 images and think they may have discovered two more
moons. Standing with the 27 that are already there. Uranus is one fist above
due west at 8:15 p.m., easily visible with binoculars, half way between Venus
and Mars.

Thursday: The group AC/DC sings that “Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t
noise pollution, rock ‘n’ roll ain’t gonna die.” Unfortunately, because of
excess and improper outdoor lighting in cities, even those as small as
Ellensburg, our view of the night sky is gonna die. As plain old ordinary AC
(Astronomy club) would sing: “Bad street lights are light pollution, our night
sky IS gonna die.” Lights that are aimed upward illuminate the atmosphere and obscure
dim objects. To watch an informative and entertaining video about the effects
of light pollution, go to https://goo.gl/UgJK33. To watch ACV/DC
sing “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution, go to http://goo.gl/dZJ8my.

Friday: Ask
someone which day in March has the same duration day and night. Go ahead, ask
someone. Why are you still reading this? I can wait. If that person said the
first day of spring, they are wrong. Today, three days before the first day of
spring, is the date in which day and night are closest in duration. There are
two main reasons for this. First, the atmosphere acts like a lens, bending
light from the Sun above the horizon when the Sun is actually below the
horizon. This makes the Sun appear to rise before it actually rises and appear
to set after is actually sets. Second, spring starts when the center of the Sun
passes through the point called the vernal equinox. But, the Sun is not a
point. The upper edge of the Sun rises about a minute before the center of the
Sun and the lower edge sets a minute after the center of the Sun. Thus, even if
we didn’t have an atmosphere that bends the sunlight, daytime on the first day
of spring would still be longer than 12 hours.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.